Jury selection begins, daughter of victim speaks out from overseas

As the selection of jurors to decide the fate of Howard D. Brown gets under way in Bay County Circuit Court, a world away, in Hong Kong, Carrie Homewood thinks of her mother.

''It has been 14 months since her death and the trial is finally starting,'' Homewood wrote in an e-mail to a Times reporter covering the trial. ''She was supposed to meet her first granddaughter in January '07, and she now would have three grandchildren and a fourth on the way. It is a shame that she will never meet them, and even more sad that these children have had their grandmother taken away from them under the saddest and most disturbing circumstances.''

Brown, indeed, is charged with felonies reflecting a most disturbing scene: He's accused of bludgeoning Delores ''Dee'' Lubaczewski to death in her South Van Buren Street home on Thanksgiving Day 2006, then stealing her car, purse and cell phone before fleeing.

Homewood wants justice, but doesn't like the spotlight being put on the man that police say confessed to the gruesome crimes.

''Enough time and money has been wasted on him,'' said Homewood.

Lubaczewski's son, Todd Lubaczewski, is likewise unable to attend the trial, since he lives in the Netherlands.

Brown's defense attorney, Jeffrey M. Day, asked Judge Joseph K. Sheeran on Tuesday for a change of venue, claiming the pre-trial publicity will make it impossible to seat an impartial jury.

But Sheeran said this case of the alleged murder of Lubaczewski, 60, has garnered ''less publicity than any other murder case I have ever had any involvement in, as a defense attorney, prosecutor or judge.'' Careful screening of potential jurors should yield an impartial panel, he said, and if not, he would reconsider the motion.

And so the sorting of the jurors began on Tuesday. Those who acknowledged having been exposed to any pre-trial publicity were asked to indicate that, and then the jurors were taken to the assembly room. One by one, jurors filed in, and, under oath, described the media accounts or second-hand details they'd been privy to. Sheeran dismissed a handful of potential jurors for exposure to publicity, while others were let go after indicating health problems, involvement with prior criminal cases or relationships with proposed witnesses.

Jury selection was to continue today.

Sheeran said he expects the trial to last two weeks.

If convicted of first-degree murder or felony murder, Brown, 39, will receive a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. He's also charged with armed robbery, home invasion, larceny in a building, carrying a weapon with unlawful intent and auto theft.

When read the official list of charges, Brown said he was confused and misunderstood.

''You're only getting one side of the story of this ordeal,'' he said.